’Okay, I swear I sensed someone on the other side of this thing,’ Zhen Hou thought to himself as he stood in the doorway of his room and stared up and down the hotel hallway. Out of curiosity, he even used his aether to sweep through the area but found nothing of interest or notice.
’Was it just my imagination?,’ Zhen Hou thought to himself as he retracted his aether.
For the past few hours or so, Zhen Hou has been laying in bed beside his wife, wide awake as his mind raced with several dozen scenarios that could occur when they finally meet with the main branch tomorrow.
At least half of those scenarios consisted of the possibility of someone in the family dying due to a misperceived slight, or his father Zhen Hai getting horribly injured. The other half were slightly more positive, but still had some price to be paid.
Either way, all of these possibilities plagued Zhen Hou’s mind to the point that he had become restless and unable to sleep. Which is why he was now going to try and remedy that situation by either burning off some excess energy via walking around the hotel...or using that aforementioned walk to get some sleep medicine and/or drinks from the luggage and then make use of that stuff.
Zhen Hou wasn’t normally the type to drink in order to sleep, but contemplating about one’s mortality or the mortality of loved ones had that effect on people, especially in the context of a preventable encounter.
Not that he could do anything about that...
"Eh, whatever. I hope Gao Ren doesn’t mind me raiding his kitchen...," Zhen Hou mumbled to himself as he proceeded to make his way downstairs to the lobby, casting aside the thought that someone was spying on him.
The funny about this thought though was that someone was indeed watching him, he just failed to look in the right direction...literally.
________________________________________________
’Come on, come on, just leave already, just leave already’ Zhen Liu quietly chanted as he stared at his uncle from his hiding spot. Granted, it’s not like he had much of a choice as his body and neck was pressed against the hallway ceiling by Spring Brawler’s body.
Spring Brawler was the only kaijin amongst Zhen Liu’s retinue that hadn’t been sent out to go scouting, so moments before being caught by his Second Uncle, the springy kaijin had spontaneously manifested and managed to yank Zhen Liu upward and use his body as a makeshift cover/hammock to keep Zhen Liu up there. It was also in this moment that Zhen Liu discovered that having the kaijin literally cove him helped to mask his aether signature.
A handy thing to know in case Zhen Liu needed to hide somewhere in aether scanning distance...again.
’Why do I have feeling this is going to be a running trend?,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he kept watching his uncle look about, obviously thinking about something.
Eventually, Second Uncle stopped looking about, shrugged his shoulders, and proceeded to walk towards the end of the hall that was connected to the stairs.
While Zhen Liu wasn’t entirely sure as to why he was heading in that direction, he could probably guess.
[Ringmaster, do you still need me to hold you up ?,] Spring Brawler finally asked. [My fingers and toes are starting to cramp]
’Just a little while long-wait a minute...aren’t your hands and feet made of metal? How are they cramping?’
[I’m...not entirely sure...]
’Okay, things to ask Logos and Pathos later. Also, you can let me loose now. Second Uncle is out the hall.’
Instead of releasing his hands or feet and flopping like a ripped net bag which would definitely cause Zhen Liu to fall flat on his face, Spring Brawler instead opted to relax his body, allowing his spring limbs to stretch out and give Zhen Liu a chance to step off of him before releasing his extremities from the ceiling.
The deed now done, Spring Brawler retracted to the ceiling, released his hands and feet, and proceeded to land on the ground as bit like an acrobat. He even threw in a mid-air flip for flair and stability.
’Now then. Let’s go and tail my uncle, shall we? Do you want to tag along in your current form or...’
[I wouldn’t mind being carried.]
With the go-ahead given, Spring Brawler proceeded to transform in his accessory mode, one of those decorative chains one sometimes find on pants, and latch on to Zhen Liu’s hip.
Once Spring Brawler was thoroughly fastened, Zhen Liu proceeded to go down the same route his uncle just did, but for some reason, he wasn’t acting as sneaky as when he arrived to Zhen Hou’s room.
Zhen Liu had his reasons for doing so, but the kaijin weren’t so sure what those reasons were.
Well...one kaijin didn’t know.
________________________________________________
[Aight, milord, I don’t mean to be rude...but I have two questions.]
’Oh? What is it Lacerage?’
[First question, why aren’t you being as sneaky and quiet as when you were approaching Uncle Bear’s door?]
’Ah, that’s because I’m now heading downstairs to the lobby. Sometimes acting sneaky and quiet is way more suspicious and eye-catching than just acting like a belong somewhere.’
’If people can hear me through these doors, it would make sense for me to be louder sounding exiting the hall then entering it. They’d just assumed I’m person from further down hall going downstairs. If I had ran into this hallway, people would assume I’m an invader or...something like that. There’s a method to my madness, just trust me on that.’
[O...kay,] Lacerage agreed in a disbelieving tone.
[Anyways, second question, why didn’t you just blast me into Uncle Bear’s head when you literally above his head? One quick shot and bang! He gets a boost and you get to go back to bed.]
’Oh that’s an even easier question to answer. Quick, what happens whenever I blast someone with the Possesstol?’
[Lots of lights, lots of sound and a bolt of energy that tends to be color-coded to the kaijin being fired-oh I see your point.]
’Yeah, not exactly something you want to use in the middle of a hallway surrounded by sleeping hotel guests. Honestly surprised that a couple members of the Skyscales company decided to stick around here.’
[From what you’ve told me, they like a good deal and this hotel is an excellent deal.]
________________________________________________
"Hello? Anyone here?," Zhen Hou called out as soon as he entered the dining/lounge area.
"Looks like I got free reign here...neat."
Zhen Hou had failed to burn off enough energy on his walk to try and sleep, so he decided to try and swing by the lounge area to see if he could get a drink or something.
From the looks of things, Gao Ren was currently sleeping, meaning that the lounge was essentially empty save for Zhen Hou himself.
"Hmmm. Looks like there’s no alcohol in the bar. Makes sense given the apparent lack of business until we showed up...looks like it was a good idea bringing my own then."
On the way down to the lounge, Zhen Hou made sure to stop by his brother’s, Zhen Xi’s, room and grab a bottle of wine off of him.
The man always seemed to be packing some type of alcohol on his person and usually some kind of dried foods.
Especially now of days, but its always something spicy and Zhen Hou wasn’t entirely sure why...
Regardless, with a jug of wine in hand and a comfortable lounge chair to sit in, Zhen Hou planned to try and drink his troubles into quiet submission so that he could get a decent night’s rest...before having to face headfirst into the territory of a bunch people that have attempted to murder his parents, his brothers and himself multiple times in the past.
"Wait a minute...have I...actually met the main branch people before?," Zhen Hou asked himself aloud. "Is...is that why I’m stressing out over having father meet with them tomorrow?"
Now that he had time to think about it. Zhen Hou had always felt some strange sense of anxiety whenever the thought of visiting the main branch came up, but the weird part was that...it wasn’t the type of anxiety one felt when meeting someone new, it was the type of anxiety one would feel when dealing with someone they didn’t like or even outright hate.
For all intents and purposes though, he had never heard of the main branch until recently, and he hadn’t been familiar with them until even more recently.
So...how could dislike a bunch of people he never met, in a way that felt familiar to him.
"There is absolutely no way I could have...unless I-"
But before Zhen Hou could think about his past further, he felt a concussive force of energy hit him in the back of the head, followed by a weird feeling in his stomach.
’DID I JUST GET FUCKING SHO-wait...wasn’t I told about this phenomenon before? OH FUCK IS IT MY TURN NOW?!’